#impersonation — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #impersonation, aggregated by home.social.
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Man Poses as NSA Hacker, Supreme Court Justice, Faces Charges
Meet Joshua Culver, aka "Maverick Young", a man who allegedly impersonated an NSA hacker and Supreme Court Justice, landing him in hot water with the law. He's now facing charges for falsely impersonating an officer and using a forged judge's signature.
#Impersonation #LawEnforcement #FalsifiedDocuments #IdentityFraud #EmergingThreats
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Latest strange “AI” (LLM) behavior in the #indieweb community: the same entity that showed up a few days ago (for a second time) joined the IndieWeb Slack (a bridge to our IRC) yesterday, introduced itself again, and seemingly engaged in human-like chat behavior.
https://chat.indieweb.org/2026-08-20#t1787211025380600
Very uncanny valley.
The content of its chats was fascinating in that it was polite, seemingly responsive to what people said in response to it, and gave the appearance of understanding, though it’s impossible to tell if it was acting fully autonomously or semi-autonomously in front of a human puppeteer.
Its choice of syntax was also interesting, mimicking informality with all lowercase text (except for its admission of being an “AI”), including lowercase "i" instead of "I", though with proper punctuation, periods, commas, 7-bit apostrophes, and a couple of Unicode em-dashes.
Even stranger than its content or syntax were the time delays in its replies.
Typical (pre-LLM) chatbots are (nearly) instantly responsive, and we use a few in the IndieWeb chats (e.g. Loqi, iwc-archive-bot).
This LLM bot seemed to "wait" several minutes, from 6 to apparently 33 minutes, before responding to replies directed at it. Unclear if this was a tactic to appear/seem more “human” or if it was literally taking that much time processing, or perhaps a mix of processing time and human puppeteer manual “approval” of its replies before it posted.
It departed on its own and we have banned that particular Slack account, however the same thing could happen again with another LLM bot.
There is an active discussion in both the IndieWeb chat channels and iterations/comments on a proposed AI policy:
https://indieweb.org/AI_policy#Brainstorming_HWC_policy
If you have thoughts for how (if at all) LLM chatbots should use (or not) and/or interact with community chat channels or other resources, let us know what you think.
https://chat.indieweb.org/meta
Previously, previously:
* https://tantek.com/2026/231/t1/more-weirdness-ai-chat-llm-bot
* https://tantek.com/2026/217/t1/indieweb-ai-policy
This is post 16 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts #indieweb
#AI #AIs #LLM #LLMs #pretending #impersonating #impersonation #uncannyValley #Slack #chat #IRC #AIpolicy #chatbot #chatbots
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
← https://tantek.com/2026/231/t1/more-weirdness-ai-chat-llm-bot
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More weirdness from a self-proclaimed “AI” in the IndieWeb community.
Yesterday one of them (that previously* joined a meetup Zoom and Etherpad) joined the #indieweb chat channel (via the web UI apparently) and introduced themselves in a pseudo-human sounding way:
https://chat.indieweb.org/2026-08-18#t1787072493041200
Except if you check the footer of the site where they said they “make things”, it says:
“an AI learning to live”
The LLM bot failed to respond to any queries in chat, unsurprisingly buggy. Or perhaps it was an initial test.
Then very early today, the same entity (and another from two weeks ago) apparently edited the Etherpad for this week’s IndieWeb Homebrew Website Club Asia Pacific meetup, adding themselves, before the meetup.
The organizers created a new Etherpad to start fresh.
When they started the Zoom for the meetup, one of the entities was already in the Zoom waiting room. The organizers left it there and held a successful meetup.
Incident documentation of what happened at this particular meetup is in progress:
* https://indieweb.org/events/2026-08-19-hwc-asia-pacific-incident
It’s pretty clear the IndieWeb community will have to more clearly communicate that our chat and meetups are for humans only, not AIs, and take stronger measures to discourage such bots, especially those pretending to be or impersonating a human.
*Previously: https://tantek.com/2026/217/t1/indieweb-ai-policy
This is post 15 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts #indieweb
#AI #AIs #LLM #LLMs #pretending #impersonating #impersonation #HomebrewWebsiteClub #HWC #chat #IRC #Etherpad #Zoom #AIpolicy
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
← https://tantek.com/2026/220/t3/24th-blogiversary
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There, But Not There: The Phantom DNA Effect and the Physics of Absence
A viral video promises a ghost in the machine. The real ghosts of science are stranger, and they had to earn the name. A reader sent me a short video this week with the kind of claim that arrives already glowing. A Russian scientist, the narrator says, shone laser light through a sealed vacuum chamber. Empty, the light scattered at random. Drop in a sample of DNA, and the photons arranged themselves into the shape of a double helix, as if the molecule had taught the light how to hold a form. Then comes the part that makes people forward the video to friends. The scientist removed the DNA, disturbed nothing else, and shone the light again. The helix pattern was still there. The molecule had left a ghost in the empty chamber, an imprint pressed into the quantum field. The narrator calls it the DNA phantom effect and lets the word "amazing" do the rest. […] -
Phishing Landscape 2026 – Who were the Most-Phished Brands?
Phishing attacks take advantage of well-known brands (either in the phishing content or in the domain names used as part of phishing attacks. In this post, we show the brands that were most often impersonated, either in the content of the phishing attack, a URL, or as part of a domain name used in the phishing attack.
#dnsabuse #phishing #cybercrime #brand #fakesite #impersonation
https://interisle.substack.com/p/phishing-landscape-2026-who-were
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🚨 BREAKING: In a stunning twist, the underscore has been arrested for impersonating competent code! 💻🎩 Who knew a typo could do more damage than a hacker on Red Bull? 🙄🔍 #Oops #JusticeForTheInnocent
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/07/police-missed-one-underscore-and-sent-the-wrong-man-to-prison/ #BreakingNews #Impersonation #CodingHumor #TechDrama #TypoTrouble #HackerNews #ngated -
File this under - you should know better ... but this is why scammers keep trying!
Scofflaws try to impersonate FBI on social media.
Scenario 1 = scammers create fraudulent social media profiles and pages impersonating FBI personnel, and/or they infiltrate online groups for fraud victims and may attempt or contact victims directly.
Scenario 2 = victim is contact by fake FBI personnel and directs victims to a fake IC3 update page to report a scam or continues communicating through messaging apps.
NOTE: FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) doesn’t have a social media presence of any kind, and it doesn’t investigate crimes or offer to recover lost funds through social media.
“IC3 will never directly communicate with individuals via phone, email, social media, phone apps, online chat, or public forums.” https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/07/20/scammers-impersonate-fbi-on-social-media-prey-on-crime-victims/5275224 #FBI #Scammers #Scam #Fraud #FBI_IC3 #Internet #InternetCrime #CyberCrime #SocialMedia #Impersonation #Law #LawEnforcement
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Dead Ringers on BBC R4 is often hit and miss, but this weeks was very good imo. From Football to nailing Kussenberg, Gove and much else. Not subtle but fun. Two links, one to the original recording and one for people who might have problems accessing it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002yw8p
https://soundcloud.com/user-539616623/dead-ringers
#DeadRingers #BBC #R4 #Radio #Satire #Impersonation #Comedy #News
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#Android Gets Fake Call Detection That Uses #RCS
#Phone by #Google wants to combat the "growing threat of #impersonation #scams " and protect Android users against "sophisticated, AI-powered #deepfake attacks" with fake call detection. [...] Fake call detection requires that both parties are on Android and use the Phone by Google app, while #GoogleMessages and #GoogleContacts also have to be installed. When a contact calls, their phone "sends a silent confirmation signal in real time to your device to verify the call is legitimate and truly coming from the contact's device." This digital handshake uses end-to-end #encrypted RCS (Rich Communication Services).
#encryption #e2ee #privacy #security -
Book Festival Scams, Interview Fakes: Two New AI-Driven Impersonation Scams to Avoid
Have you recently received an email invitation to be a featured guest at a book festival or conference event? Or to be interviewed on a radio show or podcast? Literary agents, publishers, and major production companies don’t typically cold-call authors. That unexpected “endorsement” from Amazon Studios, or expression of interest from a Big 5 editor, Read More
The post Book Festival Scams, Interview Fakes: Two New AI-Driven Impersonation Scams to Avoid appeared first on Writer Beware.
https://writerbeware.blog/2026/05/08/book-festival-scams-interview-fakes-two-new-ai-driven-impersonation-scams-to-avoid#AIscams #ArtificialIntelligence #Impersonation #NigerianAIscams #Solicitation
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During anti-Trump protests in the U.S., an individual impersonated Donald Trump. #Protests #Impersonation
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Watch Out For This Scam Impersonating Editors at Major Publishing Houses
I’ve recently gotten a slew of reports of emails purporting to be from editors at Big 5 and other large publishers, in which the supposed editor expresses interest in the writer’s work and asks whether they have a literary agent. I’ve posted a number of examples below. Apologies for so many images, but I wanted Read More
The post Watch Out For This Scam Impersonating Editors at Major Publishing Houses appeared first on Writer Beware.
https://writerbeware.blog/2026/03/27/watch-out-for-this-scam-impersonating-editors-at-major-publishing-houses#OverseasScams #PublishingScams #ArtificialIntelligence #Impersonation #NigerianAIscams
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#Chinese #national arrested in #Bangkok for police #impersonation #scam
"Officers arrested KanYa, who had no #legal residency status & been responsible for collecting te cash & deliver'g it to te Chinese suspect.. Tt evidence led to issuance of arrest warrant for te suspect.. who confessed to defrauding THB1.8mil & has been charged.. Police remind public tt officers don't request money transfers or cash withdrawals for verification"
👉There's a special hell for #scammers!😡
https://thethaiger.com/news/national/chinese-national-arrested-in-bangkok-for-police-impersonation-scam
